Rosha Yaghmai at Weiss Berlin

Photography: Linus Dessecker, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Weiss Berlin

We are pleased to present the exhibition Waxworks with sculptures by Rosha Yaghmai. In the first exhibition of the sculptor with the gallery, Yaghmais continuous, intensive examination of materials, manufacturing processes, shapes and colors clearly indicates the heritage of modern American, particularly Californian, sculpture. This new group of works includes objects made of silicone, fiberglass, limestone, and found objects that all appear luminous and at the same time transparent and opaque. The precise, molded silicone panels appear bright but also impenetrable, solid, and heavy. Each panel includes a connecting element such as a hose for water pipes, diving, showering, or a telephone cable. In the panels, these connectors appear as fossilized relics from a bygone age: Their permeability, once the most important feature of their functionality, is blocked forever. Floating in the milky, flat panels, these found objects seem to emerge from the mysterious depths of murky waters. The process and appearance of the cast works reference their proximity to the historical process of ceroplastics in which wax was used for the production of anatomical specimens and castings. In the same vein, Waxwork, Fiberglass Bench represents the smooth cast image of a bench but through the use of fiberglass it reincarnates as a functional sculpture. A free hanging curtain of carefully knotted together lenses, Optometer (Chorus), alters, refracts and reflects incoming light – amplifying the phenomenal appearance of materials, space, and surfaces in Waxworks.

Rosha Yaghmai lives and works in Los Angeles. She graduated with an MFA at CalArts in 2007, and was a Terra Foundation Fellow in 2009. Current solo projects include Weiss Berlin, and Cleopatra’s, New York. She will also be included in KNOWLEDGES at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at various spaces including Public Fiction, Los Angeles; Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles; GBK, Sydney; Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles; Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles; Riverside Art Museum; LACE, LAX><ART, Estacion Tijuana; and Transmission Gallery, Glasgow.

The gallery shows contemporary art, predominantly by artists living and working in Los Angeles and New York. Among the artists shown by the the gallery are Elif Erkan, Alex Becerra, Buck Ellison, Rosha Yaghmai, Keith Mayerson, Stanya Kahn, Evan Nesbit, and Celeste Dupuy-Spencer.